First Day of High School

It's hard to believe that Lila is in high school now.  She is loving the extra curriculars so far...the school part not so much.  But lets back up...We took her back to school photos the weekend before the start of school because she had a water polo practice the evenings before school started.

She wanted to do a water polo pose

I wasn't planning on taking any back to school photos of Luke (he still had a while before he was off to college), but Lila insisted he participate.

He's a good sport.

The annual apple photos

We were able to walk Lila's schedule a few days before school started.  She was nervous because she has classes on both the 9th grade campus and the main campus.  That means she has to walk pretty far in a short amount of time.  She didn't want to get lost and be late, so we spent a long time walking it over and over.  I also videoed our walk, so she could refresh her memory before the first day.

Class of 2029!

 

As the sign says, The Journey Begins

I picked her up from water polo practice and came straight to the walk through.  Then she had to leave here and go to a water polo team game film watch session.  (She was late to that, but it was ok - all of the freshmen were late).

She lucked out here...Her Algebra class is the left door and her World Geography class is the right door.

The day before school started, Gram treated us to a delicious lunch. Luke got a stuffed flounder and Lila got fried shrimp. It was at a new to us restaurant, so that was fun. 

She was up early on the first day.

Our printer was out of ink, co I had to hand write/trace her sign this year.

We got to the school before the doors opened.  (They open at 6:45.)  She was still nervous that she would get lost.  (She did get lost for a few moments, but she asked her counselor for help and got to the right spot!)  "and everything was all good😃"

A few days later they had open house where I got to meet her teachers.  They all seemed nice (which is important to Lila.)  

So far World Geography is her favorite core class and her favorite elective is water polo.  She's so glad that Luke didn't talk her out of playing!   (More on that in a later post)

Here are the annual collages

OK Day 5 - Going Home

Lila woke up sometime before 7:00 to be able to pet the cats again.  Their names are Ms. Claws, White Sox, and Ms. Meow.  There are apparently three other cats, but we never saw them.

As Lila predicted, the animals were the best part about the lodging for her.  We unfortunately didn't get to see Poppy before we left.  We think he was in the owner's room still.  As Lila was reminiscing, she said, "Poppy is lucky he has be around because I'm playful!"

We packed up and hit the road by 8 am.  We hit the border at 10:00

We made a quick side trip to the fake Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas.

We all laughed when we pulled up because it was surprisingly small.

We stopped at Chili's for lunch somewhere along the way.  We tried to go to a nearby local place, but they only take cash...no credit or debit.  We had given all of our cash to the Bigfoot Museum as a tip the day before.  So, Chili's it was.  We had to skip it a few days before anyway.  It was nice to check off one last thing from Lila's itinerary.

We had to get back home in time to unpack and eat dinner and then go to the last horseback riding lesson of the summer.  Lila's choice was James Coney Island for dinner.

That was the end of our Oklahoma adventure.  Lila already wants to go back, but the rest of us think there are other places we would rather go instead. 😀  I'm so glad the trip lived up to her expectations (except for not seeing Bigfoot.) 👀

OK Day 4 - Bigfoot Museum

 Lila googled what time cats wake up and she set her alarm for something really early...I'm not sure.  When I woke up and checked on her I found her out in the yard with the cats.

It was a peaceful morning.

This was our last full day in Oklahoma.  When Lila was planning this trip, the reason she wanted to come to Tuskahoma was for the Bigfoot Museum.  Unfortunately the Bigfoot Museum changed their hours to be open only on weekends. 😞  This was going to be one of the highlights of the trip for Lila.  We took a chance and called the phone number listed on Google for them.  No one answered, but Brian left a message.  Sure enough they called back and said they would open up for us!  We made the appointment for 10:00.

Although the Google reviews were positive for this place, we weren't sure what to expect.  As soon as we walked in, the owner stood up and started talking.  She didn't stop for quite a while.  She had quite the compelling story about the first time she saw a Bigfoot.  You can see Lila's face...disbelief, skeptisism, intrigue, excitement, all of the above?...I don't know.

She had a lot of interesting stories, and she gave us a personal tour of the museum.  When she first told her friends about what she saw, they distanced themselves from her and told her she was surrounded by demons and evil.  That's why she started this museum.  She wants it to be a place that people can gather to discuss what they have seen or believe without shame or judgement.  

Lila trying to imitate Patty's gait

Proof?

Artist renendering

Is it a shadow in a bush?

or is it a face watching you?

Bigfoot adult and adolescent  (Adult on the right in the trees, Adolescent watching the deer.)

Bigfoot hair?

As she was giving us the tour, she pronounced the name of this town, Honobia - pronounced (huh-no-bee).  I recognized it as the place the horse tour guy recommended for hamburgers.  I would not have guessed that was how you spelled it!  I asked the tour guide how far away it was, and she said it was only about 30 minutes away.

Family Photo

After perusing the gift shop, we decided to go eat lunch at the Honobia Creek Store.  She said it's the only restaurant anywhere around that area.  You can't miss it.  

Looks like we are in the right area

She was right.  It was around nothing be a few small buildings.

Oklahoma shaped rock

When we walked in we were the only customers.  It was clean and seemed new.  Not what we were expecting.  Although you can tell you are in the country when the restaurant has a photo of a partially digested rat that came out of a snake hanging on the wall.  😬

Later on some regulars came in, but we didn't get up enough nerve to ask about Bigfoot.  We did overhear quite the interesing conversation about unknown Indian gravesites being found.  I have a feeling those guys would have had some Bigfoot stories.

We then decided it was too hot to try to do another hike in the middle of the day.  (I was kind of hoping to go to Robbers Cave State Park.  oh well).  Instead we decided to keep going south to Sasquatch's Candy Den.  (Something on Lila's itienerary).

She doesn't really like candy, but she got a couple of small lollipops.  I got this vanilla root beer.  I didn't really notice much vanilla taste though.

We then went a little futher to Janet's Treasure Chest for some souvineer shopping.

Another sighting 😎

Then we drove back to the lodge.

Dinner at the Mexican food place again.  Sopapillas again.  I'm telling you.  There are not many choices.

We weren't too far from this scenic drive.  I told the kids I would only make them go to two quick overlooks.

Potato Hill Vista and Holson Valley Vista

The sun was starting to set as we drove back to the lodge.

A scene on the way to the lodge

There are deer in the grass along the river back there.

Zoomed in

I told the kids to hurry and get down there for a photo.  The deer were running away at that point though.  Poppy made it into the photo.

I took Lila's and my water shoes down to the river with us.  I thought that there was going to be better access to the river, but you had to walk a ways to get to the access point.  Then it was very shallow there.  Not ideal for swimming, but we could wade.

You can see the lodge way back in the distance.

There were fish in the river going against the current.  We think they were rainbow trout.

That was our last night in Oklahoma.